Lost in Suburbia classic column: Tiptoeing through the tulips … and the poison ivy

Tracy Beckerman More Content Now

Wednesday

Apr 29, 2020 at 9:34 AMApr 29, 2020 at 9:35 AM

One day I was gardening in the backyard of my suburban home and the next day I woke up with a raging case of poison ivy. I wish I could say I was surprised. Some people greet each spring with an annual bout of hay fever. But I know the season has arrived when I erupt in monster hives all over my body. You’d think after six years of this I might have an inkling what the stuff looks like so I could avoid this pathetic ritual. But obviously I don’t or I wouldn’t be sitting here furiously scratching the inside of my knee as I write this.

The other mystery, of course, is how the stuff ends up covering every square inch of my body. My theory is that I go into some kind of fugue state while I’m gardening, roll around in poison ivy and then forget I did it because it usually shows up all over my back, stomach arms and legs, in the crevices of my elbows and knees, and even between my fingers and toes. I am, quite literally, the human blister.

The first two years I had no idea what was going on and I thought I’d either been attacked by an invisible swarm of mosquitoes or I had picked up fleas from the dog. Both years I went to see my dermatologist and was utterly and completely shocked when she would inform me that I had poison ivy. Year three I started to recognize the symptoms, and by the fourth year, I just routinely called the dermatologist May 1 for a refill of cortisone.

Of course everyone who knows I go through this thinks I am an absolute moron.

“How can you not know what it looks like after all these years,” asked my husband as he watched me scratch the skin off my arm.

“I don’t know,” I whined. “It’s sneaky. It changes color and it blends in with the friendly plants. Then it jumps out and grabs me when I walk by.” He looked at me skeptically.

“No, seriously,” I protested. “I DO know what the stuff looks like and I swear, the only place I’ve seen it is way, way, way in the back of the backyard where nobody goes except the dog.”

“Well clearly you DON’T know what it looks like and it must be somewhere else, too, because you’re covered in it.”

“Hmmph,” I hmmphed.

“Hmmph,” he hmmphed back. And then I went off and scratched some more. A couple of days later, I happened to notice that I was not the only member of the family scratching. The dog, it seemed, also had a mean itch.

“Does HE have poison ivy,” I asked the vet as he examined the dog.

“No. he just has dry skin,” he said smiling. “Dogs don’t get poison ivy.”

“Lucky dogs,” I said scratching myself.

“However, if they run through the stuff and get the oils on their coat, it can be transferred to humans.”

A pause. A moment. And then slowly it dawned on me.

“Aaaugh. I got poison ivy from THE DOG! That’s just great.” I glared at the dog.

“Now what do I do,” I asked no one in particular.

The dog sat down and scratched.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I guess that’d be about it.”This is a repeated Lost in Suburbia column, which has appeared in GateHouse Media newspapers since 2008. As Tracy Beckerman’s main column is shifting focus - her kids are grown and she has moved back to the city - we are rerunning her earlier work for readers who may have missed these the first time around. You can follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LostinSuburbiaFanPage/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tracybeckerman.